Install Kong Operator

Create the kong namespace in your Kubernetes cluster, which is where the Getting Started guide will run:

kubectl create namespace kong

1. Add the Kong Helm charts:

   helm repo add kong https://charts.konghq.com
   helm repo update
   

   Copied!

2. Install Kong Operator using Helm:

   helm upgrade --install kong-operator kong/kong-operator -n kong-system \
     --create-namespace \
     --set image.tag=2.0.5 \
     --set env.ENABLE_CONTROLLER_KONNECT=true
   

   Copied!

   If you want cert-manager to issue and rotate the admission and conversion webhook certificates, install cert-manager to your cluster and enable cert-manager integration by passing the following argument while installing:

   --set global.webhooks.options.certManager.enabled=true
   

   Copied!

   If you do not enable this, the chart will generate and inject self-signed certificates automatically. We recommend enabling cert-manager to manage the lifecycle of these certificates.

This tutorial doesn’t require a license, but you can add one using KongLicense. This assumes that your license is available in ./license.json.

echo "
apiVersion: configuration.konghq.com/v1alpha1
kind: KongLicense
metadata:
 name: kong-license
rawLicenseString: '$(cat ./license.json)'
" | kubectl apply -f -

Wait for readiness

Wait for Kong Operator’s controller deployment to become available before proceeding, ensuring it’s ready to manage resources:

kubectl -n kong-system wait --for=condition=Available=true --timeout=120s deployment/kong-operator-kong-operator-controller-manager

Once the Kong Operator is ready, you can begin provisioning Gateway control planes and data planes using Konnect CRDs.